…is something only flesh and blood humans can do … in their imaginations … while actually alive. We are a moronic species of undetermined significance.
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We create our own significance, that is our genius. I was watching the genius of Shakespeare’s The Tempest against the backdrop of the Atlantic a month ago, I was overwhelmed with significance from beginning to end.
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It sounds like a potentially fun movie. Or bad. I think both have been made. Dad took us to see Infra-man at the drive-in, when I was about 8 y.o. That was pretty bad as far as I remember.
I live where we can’t get the computer chips for our cars, decent rural internet so we could make great remote-office-business use of our non-arable land, haven’t figured out how to deal with health care in an organized and civilized way, homelessness and hunger are on the rise as we have entered Fall, over half the population’s civil rights are the target of legislative erosion, education continues to be a legislative pawn and of widely varying quality, kids like my cousin who was shot at school worry about someone shooting up their school, the church can’t figure out whom it serves or interpret the most obvious commands like “Love your neighbor,” but seeks to sanctify culture without the Gospel or love, for example. If we have the means of carrying out this sci-fi fantasy, we haven’t bothered to use them to carry on reality.
At best this is a distraction from facing the real sicknesses we have and dealing with those. That is the anti-christ right there.
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It does intrigue me as to how Christianity will deal with these issues. From my understanding, Dualism is quite popular within Christianity. If the soul is somehow separate from the body, and it is the soul that really matters, then why does it matter what we do with the body from a genetic engineering standpoint?
The reaction against genetic engineering within Christianity seems to go against the concept of Dualism, unless I am getting something wrong. Perhaps there is some nuance I’m not picking up on.
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I cannot speak for the pope or other people of faith but transhumanist control of sovereignty, thought and reality clearly violates our spiritual ability to follow the Christ pathway the connection with God. This is the spiritual pathway versus the materialist pathway. Essentially the transhumanist want to separate from the higher connection with God or to make themselves gods and make an artificial reality mimicking God,Christ and “heaven.” on earth.
A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9
I am not addressing technological advances that serve to benefit our health but more those advances that lead to the loss of our humanity sovereignty free choice and spiritual development living in Christ and connecting to God.
A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
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And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, * and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
“The surface of the quieted river as I thought in those old days at Squire’s Landing, as I think now, is like a window looking into another world that is like this one except that it is quiet. Its quietness makes it seem perfect. The ripples are like the slats of a blind or a shutter through which we we see imperfectly what is perfect. Though that other world can be seen only momentarily, it looks everlasting. As the ripples become more agitated, the window darkens and the other world is hidden. As I did not know then but know now, the surface of the water is like a living soul, which is easy to disturb, is often disturbed, but, growing calm, shows what it was, is, and will be.”
From Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
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Jerusalem alone is left, a city under siege–as defenseless as a guard’s hut in a vineyard or a shed in a cucumber field.
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We just had a public event around these ideas!
I don’t personally think one is a Christian way and the other is not, but there are certainly many ethical considerations!
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At first I thought this was a thread about downloading and uploading memory banks to CDs that one could use in 100% humanoid robots. But now I get the impression that this a thread in which “Is CRISPR Christian DNA-modification technology?”.
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Given my geezerhood, I’d be glad for a thumb drive to augment my senior memory!
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Transhumanism includes both concepts in the same category, actually! Both genetic editing, technological body enhancements, robots, sentience, etc.
But Thank God for glasses, right?
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Speaking from recent personal experience, cataract surgery and IOL implants are a good thing for which I’m thankful and know ultimately to Whom!
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What do you think of genetic engineering on its own, without the interaction with computer technology?
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What? with a magnifying glass, tweezers, and a scalpel? Seems a bit risky to me.
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I was , and I guess still am a bit thrown off. I’m thinking now it’s just “ is human technological advances going to reshape society more towards the kingdom of god or further from it. Like will we focus on growing comfort worldwide and medicine or weapons and ect. But could be wrong.
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